Author: JB Park

Just weirdly really happy about this one. I remember writing it back at the end of 2015–it was the last thing I wrote that year, I think–and the title originally was “tiger of wrath.” Back in the day it had some odd relation to William Blake or something. That’s all I remember!

About half a year later I took it and ended up rewriting a good chunk (it was somewhat incomprehensible in parts) and it did well (though not well enough) through the submission process, until it found a good home at Lackington’s.

I have two more stories set to come out later this year, on Lackington’s and Strange Horizons. One is called “Camouflage,” a horror piece, and the other is called “Human Pilots,” about pilots who are human.

Well, my story–“Real Ghosts”–is out at Clarkesworld this month. Originally it had something of a twist ending but I thought it felt cheap and that the sadness of the tale was rooted more around acceptance than surprise, so the ‘twist’ ended up getting the boot. It’s also the first story I’ve sold with a Korean protagonist, so that’s nice too.

I have another story from that same setting sitting in submission somewhere so I have some hopes for that one. And another one being written, or was being written when I could write. In the distant past I think I was also working on a book.

So yeah, having a hard time writing. It’s funny because I’m always trying to tell myself “I’m a writer!” But my work ethic is really horrible. I just need to keep grinding somehow.

Well, it’s been depressing news wise. Obviously not happy about anything that’s happening in the country. Doing what I can to help, but that’s nowhere near enough. Give money, I think. So I give money, the paltry sum that I can afford, and look into local places I could help out at. But all of it feels futile. Makes me wish I had more options, more avenues to help, more resources to contribute. To lack in this manner, the powerlessness of it even as people I care for come under attack.

ANYWAY, as jarring as the transition is from the gloom above to this relatively upbeat piece of news, I made a sale today to Lackington’s–really happy about this, submitted back in December and with a revision done in January. This also means that I’ll have 3 stories come out this year.

I have a title now for the book. I like it. I see the end. I know at this point I won’t finish it in 2016–also I want to play DOOM the rest of the year–damn my laziness–hey I got this far–try to ignore all my failures otherwise–god I told myself I’d be done with this in November–but anyway, I have a title. Sometimes they come to me at the beginning and form a foundation for the story to go off of, and this has been the case for all my published or sold work, and even if I get the feeling that I’m just trying to find a pattern in viscera I can’t help but hold onto that pattern and worry when I don’t have it in the beginning that the work is somewhat doomed, as silly as it sounds. So there’s this worry about the book I’m writing but I’ll just have to push through it.

Short story front: I’ve gotten very little work done since November, though I’ve been submitting again. Working on a rewrite but I still feel like someone took an ice cream scoop to my chest. Still, proud of the three sales I made this year, two of which will appear next year. Had one story published in 2015, one story this year, and now two stories next year coming out–maybe this means three stories in 2018. Who knows. At some point I’ll have to stop counting like the number matters but for now, they do.

Getting back to reading. Going through SILENCE by Shusaku Endo; wonderful. Mulling a re-read of I HOTEL by Karen Tei Yamashita. Would like to read more Shusaku Endo. Would also like to read more Michael Cisco.

So, a story called “Porcupine” will appear on Gamut Online sometime next year. After how unbelievably terrible November was, this was a good way to wrap up the month. Looking forward to the magazine’s launch.

The story itself is a short 2k-ish piece about a Japanese soldier in WWII. I first wrote it in 2013, and since then it’s gone through many changes, revisions and rewrites, and something like a dozen really kind rejections. Now it has sold, and I can’t help but be really damn happy about it.

Will have to update the ‘about’ page to reflect my nanowrimo failure. Time for a personal December writing month, because this is the one year where I’d really like to finish a rough draft of a novel. Hoping to finish revisions by February so I can try submitting to agents for the first time.

Finding it difficult to think about the story itself. It makes me anxious, and I’ve been trying to avoid that. Ultimately there’s nothing you can do about a story’s reception, and I know that I should just sit back and enjoy the fact that I’ve put something out there.